Last night, my husband saw a skunk out in the yard, and said he was going to have to set the trap. Then, a little while later, he walked down the driveway, in the dark, with a can of poison spray to squirt in the dirt bees' nest, which they've dug in the ditch next to our mail box. There was the skunk again, its white striped tail flailing around in the dark, in the enlarged bee hole. It was burrrowing deep in to eat dirt bee larvae (yuck) never mind the stings. Dirt bees are mean. Maybe they were asleep. In the morning we could find no bees. Now my husband thinks the skunk is all right.
My excellent husband is also a mushroom hunter, and found a large clump of wild Hen-of-the-Woods (maitake) mushrooms. Roasting them in the oven fills our kitchen with an intense aroma, which I imagine is like the smell of burning peat underground in the Great Dismal swamp fire, yet strangely appetizing.
As it grows, this huge mushroom incorporates leafs, twigs, bits of sand, and wood loam, that have to be removed. Our appetite for these mushrooms seems to have become a craving. We both stand near the oven, waiting impatiently for them to be done.
Wild and bitter grapes are all seed, a little pulp, in sour dusky blue skins, but I can't resist eating them, at least a few. I feel like a child again, wild in the woods.
